Junior Doctors in the UK to Stage Five-Day Strike Next Month
Medical professionals in England are set to begin a five-day strike next month, in protest over jobs and pay.
Walkout Information
The BMA stated that resident doctors will strike for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who constitute about half of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after unsuccessful talks with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, pressing the health secretary to end the crisis of doctors going unemployed.”
“Our survey reveals 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are facing unemployment, their skills going to waste whilst countless individuals endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We negotiated sincerely, hoping the health secretary to understand that a deal including options to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, giving newly trained doctors a raise of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would recognize that our demands are not just fair but are in the interest of the public and our those we treat and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the NHS.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or as many as three years in primary care.
More details are expected soon.